I wanted to highlight the power of being able to share a calendar as an example of how communication in a company can be enhanced.
You will hear us talk a lot about how vital transparency and collaboration is with both your constituents and across your business as a whole.
Especially in today’s increasingly sophisticated customer driven environment.
The Challenge
Recently, while onsite with a client in the process of migrating their data to the new CRM they wondered if they could synchronize Zoho CRM’s calendar with Google calendars.
Half of their field staff was all over the world and had been using Google calendars for some time.
They were impressed with the ease of setting up the sync and with the flexibility it offered in exchanging information.
It reminded us that sometimes with so much change happening, clients and staff just want to be assured they can keep what has been working for them.
Either on an ongoing basis or simply as a transitional measure to ease new users into working within their new system.
What could have been a major issue for them was solved by a simple and seamless integration.
At the same time, the client also set up a marketing calendar within their CRM software for the year, visible to all and able to be edited by selected users.
Company Benefits
Sales staff can take a look to see when marketing campaigns to former clients are going out and perhaps follow up with phone calls about a particular opportunity.
Or the sales team can post their schedule for the month so that the marketing team can plan for things demand of leads that need to be delivered to allow the sales team the opportunity to hit their goals.
This kind of shared and easily accessible communication prevents conflicts.
It can also foster a felt sense of cohesion within the larger company culture.
For these clients, we saw several examples like these in which the blend of simple integration of existing tools and functionality within the new system was the perfect combination.
Shouldn’t everyone be able to see their CRM as a partner that plays nicely with others and connects where needed?
We think so.
Bring Your Calendar Home
Your CRM calendar can also be configured to synchronize with CalDAV so that events are pushed right to your existing iOS or Android device.
We have all experienced booking a work event only to realize too late that it overlaps with a doctor’s appointment.
With synchronization this problem is solved as your professional and personal appointments can be seen right on one calendar.
If you want to keep your professional and personal lives separate you can simply create calendar categories to clarify the two.
The beauty of this synchronization is that as soon as you notice a conflict you don’t have to log back into CRM.
You just make the change on your device and it will automatically update in your CRM.
Calendars are of course just a sliver of the potential to enhance your communication flows company-wide.
We often find ourselves saying around these parts, “It’s not just a CRM; it’s a communications platform.” Just think what that kind of connection could do for your company.
